Our Pac-12 Friday miniseries on college basketball in the Conference of (real NCAA) Champions and its Midwest partners, the B1G, reaches a fun year for the two conferences, both the good kind and the bad kind. The good? The two leagues sent 11 teams combined into March Madness, with the UCLA Bruins winning it all. The bad? Well, of those 11 teams, a whopping 7 of them lost in the first round—and only 2 made it to the Sweet 16. Crazy times, good and bad.

1995 Pac-10 PoY: Damon Stoudamire, G, Arizona & Ed O’Bannon, F, UCLA (original, tie); Stoudamire (revised)

The Bruins won the Pac-10 title by 3 games over Arizona, and Arizona State was the only other team to make it to the Sweet 16 after finishing a game behind the rival Wildcats. The PoY vote was a tie, too, between Arizona guard Damon Stoudamire and UCLA forward Ed O’Bannon. We have finally gone back in time far enough that we don’t have Win Shares data anymore (yet) for these players, so we have to return to the old-fashioned way of choosing our PoY winner.

In examining key statistical charts, Stoudamire topped the conference in both points per game (22.8) and assists per game (7.3); meanwhile, O’Bannon made the Top 10 in four different categories (scoring, rebounding, steals, blocks). Overall, however, we see the Wildcats point guard having much more an impact on his team’s success than O’Bannon did for the Bruins, in terms of supporting casts. We singularly award this to Stoudamire, therefore, for shouldering more.

1995 B1G PoY: Shawn Respert, G, Michigan State (original); Alan Henderson, F, Indiana (revised)

The Purdue Boilermakers won the conference title by 1 game over the Michigan State Spartans, as MSU G Shawn Respert won the PoY vote. He led the league in scoring (25.6 ppg), while not doing much else, and Respert also played alongside the league assists leader, G Eric Snow (7.8 apg). What about Purdue? The Boilermakers really didn’t have a dominant player at all to consider for this award. So, can we go deeper in the standings to find a true PoY? Yes.

The Indiana Hoosiers finished in third place, thanks to F Alan Henderson (23.5 ppg, 9.7 rpg, 2.1 bpg). We see his presence on the Indiana roster as more valuable than either MSU player and any Purdue player. He had some help, too, but in the way the Spartans duo did—and Henderson still managed to average almost a double double in carrying his team to its league finish … and an NCAA Tournament invitation as well. He’s our PoY pick, surprisingly.